


Charcoal Stains

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - High School, Art, Bullying, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Multi, Smoking, artsy!zayn, insecure!zayn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-29
Updated: 2013-03-29
Packaged: 2017-12-06 20:59:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/740101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liam's best friend has left him by himself at boarding school, and despite his other friends he feels alone and distant. Finding himself drawn to his new room-mate, whose mysterious behaviour and obsession with art both confuse and intrigue him, he decides to unravel the mystery that is Zayn Malik...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Charcoal Stains

**Author's Note:**

> Based off a prompt on Tumblr from ziamlarrymaynestylinson:
> 
> maybe zayn loves to draw and is all artsy but he gets bullied and he moves schools and meets liam (maybe they share dorms or something) and zayn finally opens up to liam because hes shy
> 
> So I kind of expanded... a lot ;)

“Have a good term, sweetie!” called my mum from the car as it whizzed away down the road, and I continued to wave goodbye until it turned a corner and was hidden by a row of trees. With a sigh, I picked up my suitcases from the ground and turned to walk back through the cast-iron gates, towards the building that I was going to have to call home again for the next 11 months. I’d never resented the fact that my parents chose to send me to boarding school before, but ever since my best friend Andy had moved to Scotland during the summer, I’d been dreading what I expected would be a rather more lonely existence at St John’s College that year. * As I made my way into the former hunting lodge that now served as an all-boys school, nodding occasionally at teachers and students who recognised and greeted me, I couldn’t even find it within me to wonder who I would now be sharing a room with Hopefully he would be someone from my year, but I had a vague notion in the back of my head that it was a new boy who I would be given to look after as I was now in Year 11 and a prefect. But when I entered the old room, which I’d been inhabiting since the age of 11, there was no one there. This wasn’t that strange, since the students tended to arrive throughout the afternoon on the first day, and so I set about my unpacking without a second thought for my new room-mate, save for leaving half the room for him to decorate as he pleased. I was halfway through arranging some World of Warcraft posters on the walls when I was alerted to the fact that there was someone else in the room by a small cough.

*

Turning to see who it was that had entered my room without asking, I caught sight of a tallish tanned boy with dark, serious eyes and jittering fingers that drummed almost silently on his faded, skin-tight jeans, and which wouldn’t have been noticeable if it wasn’t for the fact that they were stained with a hundred shades of paint. His clothing was nondescript whereas his raven black hair was fashioned up into an unfeasibly high quiff – overall he was undoubtedly attractive, in a completely objective way. It took me a few moments to realise I was staring, and by that point he had become even more nervous than he clearly was already.

“Excuse me,” he mumbled, fixing his gaze firmly on his feet so that he didn’t have to look me in the eye. “Er, I’m new here, and I think this is my room. I mean, um, like, I think we’re supposed to be sharing, or…”

*

“Oh yes, so you must be my new roommate!” I quickly interrupted him, as his words stumbled over one another in a way that I probably shouldn’t have found adorable, but definitely did. Standing up from the bed, I saw his face brighten a little as I made my way towards him and held out a hand for him to shake.

“Hi, I’m Liam.”

When he shook my hand in return after staring at it for a seconds as though he had no idea what to do with it, I noticed that as well as the paint stains on his fingers there was oil paint squashed under his gnawed finger-nails and a smudge of charcoal on his face, underneath his ear where he obviously couldn’t reach. Before I knew what I was doing, I reached out with my free hand to brush away the stain and then froze with my fingers on his neck, unsure what the hell I thought I was doing. After all, it’s hardly normal to suddenly start stroking another guy’s neck, especially when said guy is pretty much an utter stranger!

*

“Um, you had, er…” it’s best in these situations to never let your mouth go faster than your brain, but I was so embarrassed by my own gesture that I felt I simply had to explain. “There was charcoal on your neck and you couldn’t wipe it off yourself because your hands are dirty so I thought I’d do it for you, but don’t worry that’s not a habit of mine or anything, I just –” His facial expression had remained blank until that point, but just then he cracked a small smile and shook my hand once again, as if trying to shut me up or restart the situation or both.

“I’m Zayn,” he told me, gesturing to the nametag on his blazer that the school had doubtless forced him to wear. “Is this our room then? Awesome!” And with that the moment of awkward tension was over, replaced with admiration for the en-suite bathroom and cabin beds. I just hoped that the rest of our time together would run a little more smoothly.

***

The rest of the afternoon passed pretty much without incident: as a prefect, it was my job to show the Year 7s around the building and grounds, but I decided to let Zayn tag along too. That way he could get to know the layout of his new home, and so hopefully wouldn’t get lost too much in the next few weeks. He seemed to appreciate the thought, but looked gradually more bored as we explored the numerous halls, classrooms, games fields and so on, only showing more than minimal interest when he caught sight of the views from the tower and muttered something about the colours of the fields in the sunset. That evening I introduced him to a few of my friends – my best mates not having deigned to show up yet – and, as was traditional, all us older students declined dinner and instead settled down in the living room for a movie marathon. I think the tradition was meant to bring us all together after six weeks apart, but really it was just an opportunity to boast to each other about how far we’d all managed to get with various girls over the summer holidays, an activity which Zayn refused to take part in but observed from a distance with a smile. He didn’t exactly seem anti-social, however he was clearly the quiet sort, and I was grateful that the other boys seemed to realise this and leave him alone. It would have been difficult enough for him to move away from home and start a new school without the other pupils being dicks as well. * Once it had got to the point where we could all barely keep our eyes open any more, everyone began to make their way back to their shared bedrooms, so the two of us followed suit in genial silence. Over the course of the evening I’d learned that Zayn was from Bradford, had three sisters and loved pepperoni pizza, but it still seemed like a rather minimal amount of knowledge to have about the person who I was going to be sharing a room with for a year. _Still_ , I thought as I drifted off to sleep, after having taken my turn in the bathroom and crawled into bed, _I guess that’s another part of going to boarding school_. Inside, though, I couldn’t help but let my mind wander around the subject of who exactly Zayn Malik was.

***

The next day at breakfast, I sat down with my group of friends at our usual table and after greeting them animatedly, having not seen any of them for over a month, began to settle back into the swing of school life as we began our usual banter and chat. Zayn had chosen to stay in our room and sort out his hair after having had a shower, despite my protestations that he had to eat _something_ before his first lessons started, so I was unable to introduce him to Louis and Harry, who had arrived early that morning after having spent the summer together. Niall and I had been trying to convince ourselves that we really weren’t desperate to know whether or not they’d had sex over the course of the six week holiday, but we both knew it was a lie. Regardless of that, the two lovebirds were wary of inspiring the teacher’s wrath by overdoing it on the PDAs so early on, and so managed not to gaze into each other’s eyes for the entire duration of the meal. * Meanwhile Niall simply threw himself into eating as much as was humanely possible in half an hour, and he was three quarters of the way through his second plate of sausages and beans by the time Zayn deigned to make an appearance. I spotted him from across the hall, as he made himself a cup of coffee at the service hatch and looked around at the mostly full tables in confusion.

“Hey, we’re over here!” I called out, too desperate for him not to be caught in the uncomfortable position of having nowhere to sit to bother thinking about how many people were now staring at me. Surprised, his head shot up, and he turned to find the source of the noise until he spotted my waving arms and smiling face. With a half smile, he made his way over to our table, then hovered awkwardly before being invited to sit by Niall.

* 

“Hey there, it’s Zayn, isn’t it?” Nodding, he began to sip at his drink slightly embarrassedly at being asked questions while he replied.

“Yeah, and you must be Niall?” the Irish lad arrived on the plane from Mullingar late last night as usual, so neither of them had met the other before, yet they seemed to click straight away as Niall launched into a detailed description of his recent family holiday to Italy, that bored me a little, but that Zayn appeared to find fascinating. I gave my input to the conversation occasionally, but mostly I just sat back to enjoy my breakfast and the fact that my newest friend and one of my oldest were getting on so well already. * As per usual, Louis and Harry were too caught up in each other to even realise we had a new companion, until the former turned to pick up his now stone cold toast, and realised that someone else was now sat at our table.

“Why did no one tell me he was here?” Subtlety had never been Louis’ strong point, and Zayn blinked quickly, as though unsure whether he was being accused of something or not. Thankfully Harry managed to get a grasp of the situation rather swiftly, and aimed his most amicable grin at the tanned boy in the hope that it would make up for his boyfriend’s rambunctious behaviour.

“Hey mate, I’m Harry, but you can call me the idiot who agreed to date this lunatic!” With a small grin, Zayn nodded in reply while I made the introductions and the conversation moved on. Disaster in the form of confrontation had been avoided, or so it seemed.

* 

Because it was the first day of school for all pupils except the sixth formers who had started a few days earlier in order to settle into their new timetables, we were allowed a whole hour for lunch, and so there was plenty of time for the conversation to progress through such varied subjects as the etiquette of French kissing, the life of sperm whales and whether or not they should make a fourth Toy Story film. So it was rather unsurprising that at about ten to nine, Louis turned to ask Zayn about himself in order to include him more.

“So, how did you end up here?” * It was a perfectly innocent question, and actually one that I’d been tempted to ask him myself the night before, however Zayn reacted as though he’d just been asked something deeply probing and personal.

“What’s it any business of yours?” he retorted, yet his tone was more frightened than malicious as his eyes widened and he slowly began to move his chair back away from the table.

“Sorry,” Louis frowned, his face crumpling in confusion, but Zayn had already stood up and begun walking away, muttering something like ‘I need a cig,’ as he went. All four of us remaining pupils looked around at each other in something bordering on disbelief, not entirely sure what had happened. I was about to say that I would go look for him, but just then the bell went for our first lesson, and I didn’t have enough time to go searching for sullen, complicated roommates – regardless of how undeniably mysterious and attractive they might be.

***

I didn’t see Zayn until lunch time that day, when he showed up at our table with yet another cup of coffee in his slightly shaky hands, and an apology on his lips. I’d searched for him at break to no avail, but as he stood there he seemed far too nervous and certain that we would reject him for me to mention it. Of course we had no qualms about letting him sit with us, and my friends quickly brought him into their inane babbling once again, without another word about the morning’s incident .However I couldn’t help but wonder what exactly it was about Louis’ question that had brought on such strong emotions within him. Surely it couldn’t just have been the words themselves? Perhaps, then, the way the question was posed seemed too accusatory for his liking? Or maybe he simply didn’t want to tell us why he had moved to this school for the final year of his secondary education. * These thoughts circled through my mind throughout the duration of the meal, but I knew better than to ask him about them and so sat in contemplative silence, that definitely didn’t involve staring at and admiring objectively Zayn’s facial features. He was, when I thought about it, incredibly handsome, but why that appealed to me so much I wasn’t exactly sure. It was like I couldn’t stop staring at him, especially his eyes which shone like deep dark pools when he recollected a thought or memory, and glimmered with merriment as he laughed along at Louis’ jokes. Once the bell went again, I glanced over him and mouthed _‘are you ok?’_ as subtly as possible, to which he nodded, threw away his rubbish, and made his way to our next class with me without another word. I could only hope that another such incident wouldn’t happen again. I would be proved wrong in 4 days.

***

As the first school week back (always a dreary and tedious affair) progressed at its usual sluggish pace, I learned more and yet less about my roommate with every day. We talked quite a lot, and he seemed to be more open with me than with many of the other pupils, as was understandable given our living arrangements, but only ever about simple subjects, such as our favourite football teams, bands and TV shows. The moment the conversation went anywhere near his life before the school, he would clam up, although strangely he was perfectly willing to talk about his sisters, who he clearly adored, and his passion for art – although unspoken – was obvious. * He would often disappear for hours at a time in the evenings or early mornings on a weekend, and return with ink, paint or charcoal all over his hands, and a sketchbook full of drawings that he refused to let anyone see; occasionally I’d catch sight of him doodling in lessons, and was surprised by the impressively accurate caricatures of our teachers and fellow students. It turned out that me and Zayn shared many of the same classes, save for three hours a week when he took art while I struggled with geography, a subject I’d chosen with the best of intentions, but was definitely failing. So I was there with him in maths class on Friday, when he showed us all for the second time that there was a completely different side to him.

* 

Our teacher, Mr Taylor, had decided to seat is on opposite sides of the classroom for the double lesson, so I had no idea that anything out of the ordinary was going on as I chatted to Harry and pretended to solve quadratic equations. Then suddenly a crash from near the door caught my attention. Snapping my head up to see what had caused such a disruptive noise, I caught sight of Zayn standing beside his upturned table, a highly surprised looking boy called Miles sat beside him, wearing a look of pure disbelief. Several cries of shock, anger and excitement came from all around the room, but to me it seemed almost silent, as though I was far away or underwater, as I watched Zayn reach down to pick up his bag and walk silently out of the classroom.

“What the fuck happened?” whispered Harry, but I had no idea. So it’s still a mystery to me why I suddenly decided to stand up myself, ignoring the threats of my stressed and confused teacher, and made my way across the room, out of the door and down the hallway which I had seen my friend disappear down. At the time I decided to put it down to simply being overprotective, but if I was honest I knew there was more to it than that – after all, I barely knew the guy, and there I was skipping class for his sake! However that was hardly the time or place to begin questioning my own motives, so I swallowed my doubts and set about the task of finding Zayn.

* 

Eventually, after a fruitless search in our bedroom and the football pitch, I found him by the main entrance having a smoke. The remaining summer sun was beating down on us both as he smoked, and I stared before sidling up beside him. He’d known I was there the whole time, and so remained staring into the distance, while I tried to think of something, anything to say to him. For once, Harry’s blunt ‘what the fuck happened?’ seemed to sum up my sentiments exactly, but after Monday’s incident I knew better than to be too forward. Eventually Zayn himself was the first to speak, after having taken a long drag, and finally looked away from a spot on the horizon to glance down at his feet. His words, however, were more than slightly unexpected.

*

“Do you want a cig?” There was silence for a moment, as I processed whether or not I’d heard him correctly, then realised I had and replied.

“No thanks, I don’t smoke.

“Good, it’s bad for you. Gives you cancer.” More silence; if there was a clock then it would have been ticking louder than the chime of the school bell, but as it was we only had the occasional squawk of a buzzard to distract us. Finally I worked up the courage to speak, although I was worried what his reaction might be, given his obvious unpredictability.

*

“Do you want to tell me what happened in class?”

“Not particularly.”

“Oh.” Sighing, he turned back to me with a peculiar expression on his face, as though he was reading me, or searching for something within my features that would give him a clue as to whether he could trust me or not. Whatever it was he was looking for, he seemed to find it, for he nodded morosely and started to speak once again.

*

“There were some guys in the class, who were…” his voice trailed off, and when he began again it was filled with venom. “That Miles is a right prick, you know that?”

“Yeah, I know, he’s a knob head.” He grinned at that, and I realised it was the first time he’d heard me swear at all – it made me confident to continue. “What – what were they calling you, though?” A long silence ensued, but just as I was about to ask the next question, he responded.

“Fag. Queer. Poof.” * They were offensive nicknames, that I could understand, but nothing about them seemed particularly dreadful to me until his next sentence revealed more than Zayn probably realised. “It shouldn’t mean owt, but it just brought back memories, y’know?”

“I know.” I didn’t really of course, but we both knew that, both nodded, both turned to face the horizon once again, both spoke almost in unison.

“Yeah.”

***

That evening we both had detention together, during which we didn’t speak, but would occasionally glance at each other and smile reassuringly, in my case, or stick his tongue out, in Zayn’s. But we knew that some sort of confrontation had to be forthcoming, even if only so that I could set my mind to rest that I wasn’t sharing a room with a borderline sociopath, and much later on when we were both in bed after lights out seemed like the perfect opportunity to me. I could tell he was expecting me to raise the subject from the tone of his silence, the slight angle of his body on his bed, the way that he practically groaned when I finally dared to ask him:

“Are you going to talk to me about this then?”

*

“I’m not sure I’ve got a choice,” he muttered, and for a moment I felt a little bit terrible for pushing him to tell me about something he was clearly uncomfortable with, however then he turned on his bed so that we were facing each other, our eyes glinting in the dimly lit room. “Well, what do you want to know?” By this point my morals seemed slightly skewed anyway, so I pushed my inhibitions to the back of my mind, and started with the most obvious question that had been plaguing me since Monday.

“How did you end up here?”

* 

With a sigh that penetrated through the darkness of the room, Zayn turned onto his back and began to talk.

“Back at my old school I used to be popular, y’know? I had good friends, good enough grades to not be constantly in trouble, a nice girlfriend, stuff like that. I mean, I always preferred art to sports and my mates used to tease me about it, but I think when they saw my drawings they were almost too impressed to make a big deal about it. And everything was kind of perfect – at least, until I was 14. Then everything changed. My friends all turned on me, the other students began harassing me and suddenly no one wanted to know me anymore. I didn’t want to tell anyone because I thought I could deal with it myself, and, well, I’m not a snitch, so I just got on with things. I spent most of my time in the art room, but I used to get kicked and punched on the way home from school every day. My parents had no idea. But then one day, I –” for the first time, his train of speech stopped as his voice cracked with emotion that he quickly tried to disguise. “I got beaten up by 10 of my old mates outside school and I ended up in hospital. I refused to tell them what had happened, but my mum freaked out and pulled me out of school. She sent me here because she knew it was an art college, and it’s not like I lost any friends or anything because I didn’t have any in the first pace, anyway – not after…” Then his voice tailed off completely, leaving me in suspense that I was desperate to dispel. I knew I shouldn’t care about this all as much as I did, but the fact was I really wanted to find out the truth, to work out the enigma that was my roommate.

* 

“After what?” I whispered, trying not to upset the delicate silence too much but filled with the need to know more. “What happened, Zayn?” For a moment the silence simply deepened until I was certain that he wasn’t going to reply, before finally he spoke up once again.

“When I was 14, I got pissed at a party and did something stupid… I-I kissed my best mate. Who was a guy. And straight. And a homophobe. As, it turns out, was most of the rest of my school. I’m gay, and they hated me for it, and they ruined my life as a result. All because I had too much to drink one time. So there you go, the life story of me, Zayn Malik: social outcast and general fuck up.” * Inside my heart was almost breaking at his terribly truthful story, but I couldn’t exactly reach out a hand to touch him in some comforting manner, so instead I let my mouth run away from me in an attempt to let him know exactly how I was feeling.

“Don’t say that about yourself, Zayn! You’re not a fuck-up or a social reject – you seem like one of the nicest, most intelligent people I’ve ever met, and I’m so glad to be sharing a room with you. You’ve obviously been through a lot of shit and I-I’m sorry for making you tell me all about it but I want you to know that I honestly don’t care – no, not don’t care, don’t mind what you’ve had in your past. If you’re gay, that’s fine – I mean, look at Louis and Harry, no one’s going to mind!” He snorted a little at that, only slightly derisively. “The important thing is that you should know that you’re safe here and nothing like that is ever going to happen to you again, I promise.”

* 

It was cheesy, it was sentimental, yet it seemed to be exactly what Zayn wanted to hear. As he replied, his voice was thick with tears that I politely chose to ignore and he sounded so immensely grateful that I couldn’t help feeling sorry for how much he must have been dreading telling me he was gay. After having spent 4 years watching my two best mates fall in love, it was easy to forget that homophobia existed sometimes! Zayn, on the other hand, had clearly had far more experience with it that anyone should have to endure, and my desire to run across the room and hug him was so great that I had to physically restrain myself from doing so. Everything suddenly made so much sense: his sullen, withdrawn nature; his response to Louis’ question; the impact that having homophobic nicknames directed at him had caused. At the same time, though, I didn’t feel sympathetic or sorry for him – I just wanted to help him feel secure and happy and wanted, so that he could be certain that he wouldn’t be scared of a continuation of his existence at his previous school. * By that point I was fairly sure he was asleep but I still spoke up, my voice a little hoarse from the late-night conversation.

“Zayn…?” To my surprise he replied in a similarly sleepy tone.

“Yeah?”

“Can I see some of your artwork?” Almost a whole minute went past, during which I was sure he’d rejected my question and fallen asleep until he finally responded.

“OK then. I’ve got a new piece I’ve been doing actually, up in room 72.” I tried to pretend to myself that this didn’t excite me far more than it should have done.

***

The next day we both didn’t say a word to each other about our conversation, but at breakfast I quickly explained the scenario to my other friends,while Zayn was outside having a smoke. Their reactions were pretty much similar to mine: Louis and Harry, of course, claimed to have known that he was gay all along, but all three of them had wide eyes and shocked gasps when I told them how he’d ended up in hospital as the result of his tormentors. Niall began to say something about ‘fighting any homophobic prick who’d dare lay a hand on him…’ but unfortunately Zayn chose that moment to arrive back at the table, a strange smell that I didn’t recognise lingering around him. I could tell from his face that we knew we were talking about him, but he caught my eye and shrugged with a small smile as if to say that it was ok. * Over the course of less than a week, I’d somehow become able to judge his facial expressions at a glance, so I could tell from the look in his eyes that he was wary of interacting with the others at first, before he realised that they weren’t treating him any differently and so began to relax. It was another facial expression towards the end of the meal which told me that he wanted to move on, and I realised with great joy that the time had come for me to finally be able to survey his artwork. As I made my hasty goodbyes, his rare easygoing smile started to become more nervous, and his tension increased as we climbed the stairs towards his art classroom, which was positioned in a part of the school that I usually never visited. I wasn’t sure whether he was nervous about simply showing someone his work, or because that someone was me, but either way I made a point to smile encouragingly at him every time our eyes met.

* 

The art room was light and airy, filled with easels and sculptures and huge, bright paintings on the walls of everything from copies of Van Gough’s ‘Starry Night’ to the older student’s artsy black and white photography. I was too busy staring around at all the artwork that decorated the spacious room to realise that Zayn had ducked behind a canvass in the corner, and was hastily sketching away as usual.

“Hey!” I called out playfully when I noticed what he was doing. “I want to see it without the last-minute improvements, please!” Biting his lip nervously, he half smiled and beckoned me over so that I could finally see what his drawing was all about. The journey across the room seemed to take hours, until eventually I was stood beside him, surveying the image in front of me and feeling my heart do a somersault at the sheer talent of it.

*

“Wow,” I breathed, and I meant it. On the canvass was a charcoal drawing, almost a sketch really, but the detail in the face was extraordinary: the hair looked as though you could run your fingers through it; the eyes practically sparkled with life; even the ears were correct down to the very last fold of skin. “Wow,” I repeated, unable to say anything more, and I noticed that Zayn was blushing deep crimson from the praise. “It’s amazing Zee!”

“I-it’s supposed to be you,” gasping, I suddenly realised why I recognised the face so well. “I don’t suppose…” his voice trailed off uncertainly, but I could already tell what he meant.

* 

“Do you want me to model for you?” Beaming, his face lit up with the biggest smile that I’d ever seen him wearing.

“Yes, please! I mean, if that’s ok…” Laughing jovially, I shook my head to show it was no bother at all and allowed him to order me into position. Thankfully the pose he required was a natural one, and I didn’t need to stay still the whole time, so while he carefully flicked the stick of charcoal across the paper at a lightning fast pace, I was able to joke around and ask him if he would _‘paint me like one of your French girls, Zayn’_. * It took almost an hour for him to be finished, but it didn’t feel like that at all – the time whizzed by, and I found the whole experience of being the subject of a painting exhilarating rather than intrusive, as I’d half-expected it to be. Finally he let the stick drop to the floor, and took a step back to examine his handiwork, before reaching forward to turn the easel round so I could see. It was honestly one of the best portraits I’d ever seen from someone of my own age group, and regardless of any bias our friendship might have given me, it was definitely worth much more than an A* at GCSE. My praise turned the tips of Zayn’s ears pink, and he simply turned to resort the paint pallets behind him to hide his blush.

“Thanks,” he muttered, yet no further words needed to be spoken for us both to understand exactly the weight that that single one held.

***

On Sunday, Zayn went back to Bradford for the day, while I played X-Box with Niall, who somehow managed to win while simultaneously eating pizza and talking to his brother on the phone – let’s just say FIFA has never been my forte. However on the Monday he was back, and his attempt at a sincere apology to Mr Taylor was enough to convince the whole class that he was definitely going to fit into St John’s rather nicely. I knew that Zayn’s last lesson of the day was art, and that he would probably end up staying back to paint brushes or clean glue pots, so straight after geography I head upstairs and, sure enough, found him in an empty classroom holding several bottles of paint.

“Give us a hand, would’ya?” he asked with a smile, and for the first time I saw yet another side of him – the confident, happy persona that must have been what made him so popular at his last school. * After having helped him tidy away, I caught sight of him eyeing up the easel in the corner once again, and so boldly dared to ask him the question that had been playing on my mind too.

“Do you want to draw me again?” At that point I was certain that his embarrassed little nod was without doubt the cutest thing on earth, however, once he’d finished and shyly handed me the drawing (this time bold and cartoony and coloured in with splashes of poster paint), I knew that it was in fact the way his face lit up as I praised it. I wondered how he hadn’t managed to notice his own skill before, but was determined to praise him as much as possible, if only to raise his self esteem and make him smile again in the way that did things to me I didn’t even want to think about. “It’s amazing, Zayn,” I told him, and for the first time I think he almost believed me.

***

For the next few weeks we continued in the same fashion: every day after school I would find myself in the art room in a number of different poses, while Zayn would draw me with whatever medium took his fancy that afternoon. Or if he wasn’t in the mood to sketch me, then he would draw the classroom, or the view from the window, or a picture he’d printed out that afternoon, while I sat beside him and marvelled at the way his pencil or paintbrush or piece of charcoal would seem to dance across the paper, and somehow create piece upon piece of beautiful art. Usually, though, Zayn preferred to draw me, because he claimed that it was ‘more of a challenge to draw something that won’t stop fucking moving!’. * Once he’d completed his initial sketches, I was able to make a start on my homework while he finished off the drawings, and we chatted benignly about anything and everything. During these times, he seemed to open up to me like he had done that night when I found out his reasons for moving here, and in return I told him things about myself that even Andy didn’t know. Zayn was still getting thrown out of classes for losing his temper, and I was still trying to convince him to quit smoking, but overall everything was gradually becoming normal and relaxing and routine. As much as my new friend complained about how structured his timetable now was, I’d always enjoyed the feeling of knowing exactly where I should be at a particular time, and right then I knew that where I should be – where I wanted to be – was with him in the warm, sun-strewn classroom.

*

If my friends were worried about the amount of time I was spending with him, then they didn’t show it; Harry and Louis were as obsessed with each other as usual, and probably wouldn’t have noticed if we were plotting to blow up the school together, whereas Niall had thrown himself into the band he and our fellow students Josh and Dan had started up the year before, and spent most of the time me and Zayn were in the art rooms rehearsing with them. In fact, they all expressed their separate pleasure at seeing me get a new close friend, to make up for the hole that had been left by Andy’s departure. At one point Louis did mention something about ‘making sure he’s not getting the wrong end of the stick’, before catching sight of my blank expression and shrugging it off with a friendly shake of the head. * I honestly had no idea what he meant, or maybe I did, but just didn’t want to think about it at all, and so I squashed all such thoughts right to the back of my mind and concentrated on my flourishing friendship, until I could avoid the awkward confrontations no longer. I’d managed to completely ignore the idea that Zayn could be attracted to me, and steered well clear of the notion that those feelings might be returned, and then he had to go and bulldoze over the barriers I’d erected in my head, bringing the swirling, icy waters of those dangerous thoughts to the forefront of my consciousness. * It happened like this: Zayn kissed me.

***

We were sat in the art room together as usual – I was posing with my eyes closed so that Zayn could practise drawing eyelids, and he was in the middle of repositioning a pair of glasses on my face that kept insisting on sliding down my nose. It was the closest we’d ever been, as I felt his warm breath hit my cheek and his bitten fingernails accidentally scratched the tip of my ear. Then before I knew what was happening, there were suddenly another pair of lips pressed against mine. They were warm and slightly chapped and definitely male, which made it different from the other two kisses I’d experienced in my relatively short lifetime in only two respects. It wasn’t _not_ pleasurable, although the moment I spent frozen in my seat due to the contact obviously wasn’t spent contemplating the fact that I was enjoying this was more than I should have been. However it was rather odd, given that the person kissing me was my best friend, which is why I quickly pulled away and gazed back at him, wide-eyed.

*

“What did you do that for?” I didn’t understand why he wasn’t panicking like me, so could only look on in confusion as he frowned at me and said the words that made it a hundred times worse.

“Well I really kind of like you, and I’ve never been too good with words so…” Then suddenly something snapped in him, as he lost the sense of calm and a terrified, radical look appeared in his eyes. “Oh God,” he murmured, backing away from me as the full force of his actions appeared to hit him like a tonne of bricks. “I just…” Then he ran away out of the classroom and I heard his footsteps on the stairs, but this time I didn’t follow him.

***

To say I spent the day stressing out would be an understatement. I was a confused wreck, searching desperately for something to anchor me back to normality as I deliberately stayed as far away from my room as possible, so as to not have to face the prospect of bumping into him. Yet when I slipped back into the room at half past 11 to find him fast asleep, having not spoken to me all evening since the kiss, I was for some reason disappointed.

I did a lot of thinking that night.

***

The next morning he wasn’t in his bed when I woke up, but if I was honest I wasn’t surprised. I had a shower and got changed with little haste, worried that if I rushed I might manage to dislodge the serenity that had fallen upon my brain with the dawn chorus. For once I wasn’t over analysing, I wasn’t worrying, I wasn’t even thinking. I just knew there was something I had to tell him. * I knew exactly where to find him – it was his favourite place in the grounds, probably due to the fact that he claimed it was the best sketching spot. Sure enough he was sat on the dew-damp grass, leaning against the oak tree with a sketchbook in one hand and a roll up in the other. When I sat myself down next to him he didn’t even flinch, just took another drag from what I now knew from the smell to be a spliff. For some reason, I didn’t feel the need to warn him against the use of illegal drugs. That could come later; right then I was determined to live entirely in the present.

“I thought about what you said,” I told him carefully, determined to pick out exactly the right words to make my point. When he said nothing, I tried to persevere. “You know, that you ‘really kind of like me’?” Cringing at my own awkwardness, I willed him to say something, do something, to end the terrible tension between us, but he simply remained silent and frozen. “Well…” now came the most important sentence of all, the whole point of this conversation, and I could only hope to God that I’d made the right decision, because there would be no going back afterwards. “I really kind of like you too. A lot.”

* 

It was as though I switch had been flicked inside of Zayn: a beaming smile suddenly found its way onto his face as he turned to me with wide, disbelieving eyes.

“What? Do you really mean that?” The pure happiness on his face was enough to convince that it was ok, because an infectious smile was such a rarity to see on Zayn that its very presence made me feel honoured and important.

“Of course I mean it!” I laughed, gingerly reaching an arm around his shoulders that he froze in at first before quickly relaxing into. “I’m not in the habit of just telling guys that for fun!” * We both giggled at that, and after a moment or two Zayn dared to rest his quiffed head on my shoulder in a way that made my heart flutter and race.

“It’s nice here, isn’t it?” he asked sincerely, making me notice for the first time the scene that was playing out in front of us. The sun was rising in the pale blue sky, that was gradually darkening to a deep azure; the dappled water of the pond we were sat near reflected the grand school building behind us in all its sun-dappled splendour; a buzzard flew overhead, and its squawking was for once almost musical.

* 

“Yeah.” There was a long pause, the sort that might have lasted minutes or hours or even days. “Do you want to go in yet?”

“Not really.”

“Me neither.” * His hands, which had been resting on his notebook – the spliff having been promptly stubbed out after my revelation – moved suddenly towards my own, but he still paused uncertainly before taking my pale, calloused hand in his own small, tanned one. The fingers wound together of their own accord, and I could see that the charcoal on his digits was rubbing off onto mine, staining them a deep grey.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked finally, and scrap all the previous entrants, that was definitely the cutest thing ever. I nodded. So he did. At some point his other hand found itself cupping my face, and I knew full well that my cheeks would now bear charcoal stains as well but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered – I’d found him.

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you guys like this,because it's probably one of the pieces of writing I'm most proud of. Drop me a comment? :)


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